Modern Western industry is in its very essence hierarchically ordered. In the system of authority, in the differential allocation of rewards it mirrors, indeed moulds, the culture and values of the society in which it is situated. Whether large industrial enterprises could ever be run otherwise is an important political question which, perhaps unfortunately, is beyond the scope of this monograph. Here we are able only to document how the structure of a particular industry generates alignments and oppositions among its workers of a kind which are usually described as those of status and class.

These two terms are among the most discussed in the whole of social and political theory. There is an enormous literature, the relevance of which for the material to be presented here would itself need a whole monograph. Consequently the theoretical significance, if any, of the findings, can be dealt with only cursorily, and largely in parentheses. Some initial discussion of one issue – the definitional problem – is, however, unavoidable, for as has frequently been shown the concepts that are involved are often given widely varying meanings (cf. Lasswell 1965: 53ff.). One of the more lucid analyses of the issues is to be found in the work of Ralf Dahrendorf (1959). Broadly speaking I accept the distinction he draws between ‘class’ and ‘stratum’, and my use of the term class largely follows Dahrendorf's recension of Marx.